Action sports is getting an overhaul next year.
After years of one-off events, freeskiing, snowboarding, skateboarding, BMX and freestyle motocross athletes will be competing in global leagues, with winter and summer seasons of events. And in the last two weeks, two competing organizations have announced plans to gather athletes into leagues with global events.
The X Games on June 13 announced the most sweeping transformation in its 30-year history, with a new global X Games League featuring sponsor-supported teams of athletes competing in four winter and four summer events a year, with at least one in the U.S. Four days later, snowboarding icon Shaun White announced he was launching the first global winter sports competition, with his Snow League featuring men and women skiers and snowboarders competing for a $1.5 million purse in five halfpipe events across the world.
Tom Wallisch, a freeskiing legend who now works as a commentator for both Olympic and X Games events, said the sponsorship and prize purse dollars flowing to winter athletes has slowed in recent years.
“You can win a gold medal at the X Games and still be in the hole from travel costs,” said Wallisch, who won a gold medal at the 2012 Aspen X Games. “There are so many deserving athletes and just a finite amount of money for them.”
Wallisch appreciates seeing the X Games and White lure new financial backers into winter sports. Spectators could get a chance to see more events if the league plans unfold as expected.
“After so many years, it seems like more people are recognizing this isn’t a bunch of renegade athletes in the X Games. These are legitimate athletes competing in Olympic-level competitions that people want to see more often than once a year or once every four years,” he said. “It’s cool to see new money and new interest coming in to create bigger events and give everybody a chance to be a star.”
New York private equity firm MSP Sports Capital acquired a majority interest in the X Games franchise from ESPN in 2022, promising a “reimagined future” for the storied brand that launched the careers of many Olympians-in-the-making. The new worldwide team format plans for an international calendar of contests, a la Formula One racing. MSP is looking for sponsors for teams of athletes in both a summer and winter X Games League, with four events around the world. Athletes and at least four summer and four winter teams will accumulate points in the four contests, one of which will be in the U.S.
MSP said it has been developing the league plan since it invested in the X Games and investors include nine-time snowboarding medalist Scotty James, seven-time gold medal snowboarder Chloe Kim, Grammy-winning DJ Diplo and e-sports gaming star Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. (No relation to this journalist.) The idea is that the team format will provide athletes with salaries as well as sponsorship deals and audiences can tune in to year-round competitions starting in 2026.
“Action sports deserves to be on a pedestal year round and not just a few times a year,” reads a statement from MSP announcing the new competitive format. “Athletes deserve a secure and sustainable living. That means more contests, more often, and more ways to earn.”
Three-time Olympic gold medalist White said his Snow League will focus on five halfpipe events in its first year, starting with an inaugural event in the U.S. in early 2025 and ending in the winter of 2026 after the Winter Olympics in Milan. The initial season calls for the top 20 snowboarding men and top 16 women kicking off the halfpipe league with freeskiers joining in later competitions.
White, who is 37 and retired from snowboarding after the Beijing Olympics in 2022, first competed in professional events at age 13. His more than two-decade career led him to realize “snowboarding and freeskiing athletes deserve a legit professional league,” he said in a statement announcing The Snow League.
“Now is the moment to elevate the next generation of winter athletes who are pushing the limits of competition,” he said.
The Snow League has enlisted Kim among the competitors and the new format has the support of Sophie Goldschmidt, the president of U.S. Ski and Snowboard, the two sports’ national governing body. Goldschmidt, in a statement, said The Snow League was a welcome addition to the Olympic qualifying events like U.S. Ski and Snowboard’s long-running annual U.S. Grand Prix contests at Copper Mountain and Mammoth.
“We want our athletes to have the opportunity to participate in more events, consistently be introduced to newer audiences, and have the chance to achieve success at the world’s best venues,” she said in the statement.
It is uncertain how the new leagues will interact with existing competitions or if sponsored teams would allow athletes to compete in leagues beyond their own.
Organizers behind the Olympic qualifying Winter Dew Tour, which launched in 2008 with three stops, including Breckenridge, declined to comment on the new league plans.
ESPN ran Winter X Games events in Tignes, France from 2010 to 2013 and in Norway from 2016 to 2019 alongside the contests in Aspen in late January. The network announced plan for X Games events in Calgary, Alberta for 2020-22 but the Canadian government nixed funding for the events in 2019.
Neither the X Games nor White offered locations for competitions. The Winter X Games wrapped its 23rd event at Aspen Skiing Co.’s Buttermilk ski area in January without a contract for the 2025 event. After MSP took over the event in Aspen, the X Games nixed live music and began selling tickets for close-in access to the competitions.
John Rigney, the executive in charge of events at Aspen Skiing Co., which has hosted the X Games at its Buttermilk ski area since 2002, said his team is working with the X Games for future events and they were aware of the changes coming to the competitive landscape.
“We are excited that future efforts will be even more supportive of the amazing athletes. Anything that helps grow the sports that have evolved and grown here on Buttermilk is a good thing,” Rigney said in an emailed statement. “We continue to discuss options for the future with X Games and anticipate getting clarity on the winter calendar shortly. For 2025, we are tentatively planning on the same time frame as in the past.”
Source Link
